A bipartisan privacy board on Wednesday unanimously adopted its report that endorses some of the National Security Agency's Internet surveillance programs.

The programs provoked worldwide controversy when they were revealed last year by news organizations after leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, whose members were appointed by President Obama, concluded in a lengthy report that the NSA's targeted collection of Internet data within the United States passes constitutional muster and employs "reasonable" safeguards designed to protect the rights of Americans.

David Medine, a former government privacy lawyer who chairs the board, said NSA's Internet surveillance was found to have been "valuable and effective for protecting the national security and producing foreign intelligence information."

"This is a weak report that fails to fully grasp the civil liberties and human rights implications of permitting the government sweeping access to the communications of innocent people," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The report stands in contrast to the board's last action, when it argued in January that the NSA's collection of domestic calling records "lacked a viable legal foundation" and should be shut down.

At issue were programs carried out under a 2008 provision of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act known as Section 702. The NSA uses court orders and taps on fiber-optic lines to target the data of foreigners living abroad when their e-mails, Web chats, text messages and other communications traverse U.S. telecommunications systems.

Section 702 includes what is called the Prism program, under which the NSA collects foreign intelligence from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and nearly every other major American technology company.

U.S. intelligence officials and members of Congress have agreed that Section 702 has been responsible for disrupting a series of terrorist plots and achieving other insights.

The board said the programs have "led the government to identify previously unknown individuals who are involved in international terrorism, and it has played a key role in discovering and disrupting specific terrorist plots aimed at the United States and other countries."